The Winter Of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent is the final novel of American author John Steinbeck (1902-1968). Published in 1961, the themes reflect Steinbeck’s concern with the degradation of American culture and morality. In some ways, the novel departs from Steinbeck’s more iconic novels, which include East of Eden (1952), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and Of Mice and Men (1937). Steinbeck takes the novel’s title from a line in William Shakespeare’s play Richard III (1597).

The critical reception of The Winter of Our Discontent varied. Prominent critics, such as Edward Weeks of the Atlantic Monthly and Saul Bellow, hailed it as an instant classic and insightful commentary on America’s preoccupation with greed and wealth at the expense of morality. Others believed the novel signaled the weakening of Steinbeck’s literary talent and found the protagonist, Ethan Hawley, unbelievable for his wild swings between criminality and moral piety. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature for the novel in 1962.

Steinbeck is one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. He won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Grapes of Wrath. Like Steinbeck’s other novels, The Winter of Our Discontent centers on the fate of the everyman in an unjust world.